March 25, 2008 
The AFL-CIO conducted a poll of almost 27,000 people about healthcare earlier this year. (The population was slightly biased with over 50% belonging to unions … which I don’t think is representative of the country.)
The results I think are very telling about how the average person thinks about healthcare in the US:
- One-third of respondents to the online survey, sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Working America, report skipping medical care because of cost, and a quarter had serious problems paying for the care they needed.
- Ninety-five percent say they are somewhat or very concerned about being able to afford health insurance in the coming years.
- Almost half overall (48 percent) and 60 percent of Latinos say they or a family member has stayed in a job to keep health care benefits when they would have preferred changing jobs.
- Ninety-five percent of respondents say America’s health care system needs fundamental change or to be completely rebuilt.
- Seventy-nine percent say health care is a very important voting issue, and 97 percent say they plan to vote in the November elections.
I pulled a few of the patient quotes, but they are stunning in terms of the challenges and the hardship people are enduring due to healthcare costs.
“What would you do if you had to choose between food or medicine? Because of rising health care costs, that is a question that is frequently asked in my home. I work full time and have health care through my employer, but only a percentage is paid by them….I recently needed medication for an ailment, but did not get the medicine—I couldn’t. What would I choose? I choose my children and what they need, whether it be food or medicine. I am the one who will go without before they suffer.”
“My son joined the National Guard and went to Iraq so his wife could have health insurance. A very heavy price to pay though luckily he survived his first deployment and we fervently hope he will survive future deployments as well. ”
You certainly should read the report and/or the website summary. I hope our presidential candidates and elected officials do.
Enabling Healthy Decisions 
Our health care system is in a crisis.
My personal story.
Lior Kahane MD Speaks the Truth of Why He Lost His Medical License
In life there are always two sides to a story.
The feature headline, “Doc Who Lost License Becomes Love Guru” written by Carla McClain about me in The Arizona Daily Star on Jan 28, 2007 is simply untrue.
It shocked me to read this article using words like “gross negligence” and “egregious” in an attempt to defame my character.
In the process of getting a move on my life over the past couple years I made the best of the situation by letting things just be.
At this point, I realize it’s time I speak my truth.
Rather than go into the detail about the real reason “why” Carla wrote this story and her agenda of trying to destroy my career through the manipulation of the press – it’s not worth my time.
Instead it’s important to focus on the reality of what happened in my legal case by sharing the facts of my story. The false judgments need to be corrected so others are justly informed.
As a Trauma Surgeon I dealt with life and death on a daily basis. Throughout my career, I have operated on thousands of patients, including celebrities, politicians, physicians and their families and regular people just like you.
The accusation that I was involved in deaths or wrongdoings of patients is false and misleading.
The patients alluded to were very complex sick patients that did not die under my knife, nor was their demise attributed to my surgery.
If anyone at the Arizona Daily Star paper would have taken the time to review public court documents they would have seen that world renowned experts have denounced my involvement in these so called “botched” and “unnecessary cases.”
During my practice I was one of the busiest and most well respected surgeons in Nogales and Tucson. Over the years I also developed a reputation as a surgeon who was known to give freely of my compassion and empathy to patients of many different cultures.
The Federal Government of Tucson sector honored me with commendations, and even an honorable citation for saving a Border Patrols agent life after a gun shot wound to the abdomen. The story was highlighted in the Arizona Daily Star on August 11, 1995.
It’s been my honor to speak to audiences throughout the world and receive standing ovations based on the knowledge, wisdom and experience in the medical field.
The bottom line is: I lost my medical license due to peers attacking me and not due to patient care.
One peer in particular was Dr. Edward Schwager, a family Physician who knew me in Tucson, sat on the Board and persuaded them to revoke my license base solely on this ridiculous chart review.
He too, is no longer on the Board and was not reappointed by the governor. Incidentally the attorney for the state medical board “Stephen Wolf” whom tried to make a name for himself by sensationalizing his comments against me has been removed and demoted since my case.
My license was revoked in 2003 despite an administrative judge’s recommendation not to revoke it. The revocation was based solely upon one Board’s medical expert opinion Dr. William Kennell whom turns out never re-certified his Board Status and later admitted in not keeping up with his Continuing Medical Education as required by both Federal and Arizona state statutes.
When complaints about this were posed against Dr. Kennell, the Board ignored these statutes.
It is interesting soon after my case was finalized Dr. Kennel no longer qualified as an expert with the Medical Board. It is equally important to note all my experts completely disagreed with Dr. Kennell and there was no patient harm or complaints from any patients.
Experts who testified on my behalf stated these few cases out of thousands of my cases met the standard of care.
These experts are all well recognized Surgeons which included Dr. James Malone Professor of General and Vascular Surgery at the University of Arizona Medical School, as well as Tyler Kent MD, Alfredo Guevara MD and John Taylor MD, who is an internationally highly respected Surgeon and program director at The Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
Unless you’ve been involved in a media scandal it’s hard to understand how easily the press can manipulate the truth of what really has occurred at one point in time and the power over the people the media has – regardless whether what the press says is true or not.
The business of the media is often to put a “spin” on a story, sensationalize an event and mislead the public in order to catch your attention, sell more papers and make more money.
– Lior Kahane MD
March 13, 2008
Lior Kahane MD is a trauma surgeon and graduate of the prestigious Baylor College of Medicine and studied under the auspice of Michael E. DeBakey MD.
How can our lawmakers and presidential candidates ignore the findings of this poll? It says it all: trash the present broken, deplorable, health care sysytem that is a national disaster and replace it with a plan that ensures affordable, accessible, quality health care for every resident in this country. To do so would mean not yielding to pressures by AMA, AHA, Pharmaceutical, and Health Insurance Company lobbyists to continue status quo. Are they courageous enough to do that?
charlesclarknovels
http://www.charlesclarknovels.com